What a beautiful place. I would love to be working in that garden, so many possibilities. Don't suppose you want to swap for a small suburban garden on the east coast!! (only joking) All the best with the move and I am looking forward to seeing how your garden grows.

Magnificant garden. (I'm just back from the Lost Garden of Helligan which looks like it might have started out like yours. lol)_________________Retired trouble-maker. twitters @walltoall and dreams of being promoted to Pedunculate Oaker.

I was across at the house today and had a good rummage around the garden, I will take your advice about not ripping out too much undergrowth but the photos I posted before are the bits that have been kept in check, which is about half an acre of the 6

Theres a good couple of acres of wetlands with a wee lake which I havent got a clue what to do with but it would be great if the dogs could jump in for a swim without being covered in mud.

My first job is going to be powerwashing off the patio as the views from it are awesome, what flowers and plants would go well in patio beds SW facing against the back of the house?

Years ago we laid the very best quality concrete slabs, as a patio area, over time they got black... so out came the pressure washer. Great, they looked clean... BUT, in doing I had stripped off the top layer of the slabs, leaving the stone and aggregate used to construct them exposed.

Now they get black really quickly. I would never use concrete slabs ever again. Go for real stone. the extra expense is worth it in the long term.

I thought you were going to leave the garden till the spring. Doing it now you risk destroying other treasures that are dormant!

The garden beds along the back of the house have been overrun with weeds and the plants that are there have never been looked after so are all woody. I shall take some photos and maybe folks here can advise me on whats worth keeping and when the best time to prune them back is.

Rather than have shrubs in these beds I'd rather have flowers to be honest.

With the patio, weeds are growing up between all the pavers so a short term fix for me is powerwashing them, thanks for the comments about defacing them and replacing with stone, I will add stone pavers to my wishlist lol as you can imagine windows, floors, heating, a bathroom and kitchen needed and then a garden shed, greenhouse etc etc take preference.

I think my cutting branches and thinning to let in light is something I am going to do over this winter as I really want to let some of the smaller stunted hardwoods have a chance in life as at the moment they are struggling as the wooded areas have never been thinned and the softwoods have dominated everything also a lot of them are dead. also the pine needles dont let anything survive on the floor.

Your garden looks fantastic, I would be itching to get out and start on it just like you. On your sw patio you will be able to grow anything you like. Start to plan for spring now and plant snowdrops, crocus, daffs and tulips, In meantime you can plant up with some winter bedding like flowering sedums, cyclamen, and the old reliable pansies, this will have an immediate effect for colour.

Thinning out and tidying is a good idea, but be careful as winter is on the way and you don't want to cut back so much that frost can do damage.

Keep the pics coming it will be amazing to look back next year and see the changes.

Well it's been months since I posted on here are my garden has changed quite a bit, I spent the winter so far clearing away dead and overgrown areas of the garden cutting low branches on trees and cleaning weed out of the pond. The house sale still hasn't gone through so I haven't done any modernisations or spent anything on the grounds and we have been living here as caretakers untill it does. It has been mild this winter but very wet but it's great to see all the bulbs shooting already, I have one huge camellia which is blooming and snowdrops and the days are about 3 inches high and all over.

I cut back bushes round the pond which has opened it up and I have a heron that visits often and I have spotted with an eel so I guess there must be a few in there. Put up a bird feeder and have lots of wee birds loving that, Invested in an app for the iPad birds of Britain and Ireland so I photo the birds and then check what they are, Reed buntings and great tits are two that I hadnt seen so often before. Will have to make some bird nesting boxes this week. My neighbor recons there are a pair of kestrels nest in the trees but I have yet to see them.

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